Editorial: Agencies must curb spending on buildings

A way to attack overspending by the federal government would be to get control of the government's building inventory and the lavish spending on leasing, remodeling and maintenance.

There is not a single list of the properties owned by the federal government. The General Services Administration cannot account for all of the buildings owned, according to National Public Radio.

A lot of money is being spent on buildings that are scheduled for demolition. The government is spending heavily to remodel building when others sit vacant. It is not uncommon for the government to pay unusually large sums to lease other buildings. Leasing can be a reasonable alternative to owning a property because it can offer more flexibility, but it depends on how it's done.

For maintenance, the federal government spends $8 billion annually to maintain buildings it has little use for. Selling excess federal government buildings is more difficult than a typical sale because laws require that a building must first be offered to other branches of government and considered for a community use like a homeless shelter.

A member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has introduced legislation to help dispose of thousands of government buildings that are vacant or not used.

"When you see these departments and agencies leasing a building and then investing millions and millions of dollars to retrofit them for their specific need, it just sort of drives you nuts," he said. "At the same time that we've got 77,000-plus buildings that are underutilized." These problems are not new because in 2011, CNN reported that for the fiscal year 2009, 45,190 buildings were described by the government as underutilized and 10,327 others were counted as unwanted or "excess." The numbers cited by the national news media vary widely about how many buildings the government owns and has basically abandoned. A New York Times report in 2011 said the government owns or manages 900,000 buildings or other structures. At that time, 14,000 were no longer needed and 55,000 more were described as underutilized.

The cost of keeping the lights on in empty or little used federal buildings is as least $1.5 billion a year, said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., as just one example in his extensive annual government waste report.

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